I goofed, thought I read on the SSAT website that the skills snapshot results were available right away. Nope - 2 weeks. That’s fine for the Jan 31 due date but not for Jan 15.
I have searched the Groton website and cannot find any mention of the skills snapshot (but clearly my reading and comprehension skills are fading fast). Anyone know if it says anywhere that it’s recommended for Groton? If it is I would email and let them know it’s coming, if not I will just let it be.
That’s odd. I received my snapshot results the day after I took the test.
@YoungThriver See that’s what I thought was supposed to happen. Did you take it a while ago? Maybe now there’s a backlog? It seems silly since it must be totally computer generated, there’s no paper that needs to be sent anywhere or fed into a machine.
I took it mid-november. They seem to be taking extra precaution this time because the last time I took the test, my results were inaccurate and they had to rescore them. That took them week.
How did you know the results were inaccurate? From what kid told me, the test was pretty silly.
When my son applied to schools last year, the Character Skills Snapshot was just being rolled out, and none of the schools asked for the results. I had my son complete the snapshot just to see what it was like (although we did not send results anywhere.) His comment to me was that he thought the test was easy to manipulate, in that you could tell which answers would cast you in the best light. I don’t know if the snapshot has changed since then, I guess we’ll find out in the fall when my younger son starts applying to schools!
My daughter’s feedback was this:
The situation portion was absurd.
She said it was both clear which was the “correct” answer and she could NEVER imagine herself choosing to do the “wrong” answer IRL. One that stuck out to her included complaining to your parents. She said she laughed out loud when she imagined complaining to me and what my reaction to that would be.
The personality portion was half easy and half ridiculous.
She said some of them were easy to pick, one answer was clearly very like her and one was clearly not like her at all. She said the other half she had to choose between two things that were both very much like her and she felt like they were trying to figure out if she was an “intellectual” or a “socially aware” person. She said she wished she had kept track of how she answered so she could go half and half on these. She is both and felt like she was choosing one trait to the detriment of the other for no real reason.
She said once she had to pick something as “not like her” which made her look bad just because none of the answers fit correctly and she didn’t like being forced into a corner like that.
We didn’t do it because none of the schools required it or mentioned it, but I had the concern about it not being a very accurate measure! Unless they require it I wouldn’t worry about it.
@busymommyof4 Yes, we will see when we get the results. I suspect that the test could be ok at measuring skills in kids who are one track minded. I think it probably sucks at measuring skills in kids who are seriously into everything.
It really depends on when you take it. If you take it between X and Y you will get it on Z, which might be the day after Y, or 2 weeks after X.
@dogsmama1997 Apparently, I was scored against middle schoolers, not high schoolers. My first test results had many in the demonstrating section.
Ahh, got it.
Update: the results came in this afternoon. I can see the clear result of my child having to decide between the “friends/social” choice and the intellectual choice. I have confirmed my feeling that the test is a bit silly and not super descriptive of my kid. There is one demonstrating that should be a developing and several developing that should be demonstrating. I also think some of the social questions are very poorly worded like the “tries to resolve conflicts between people in a group” they see that as demonstrating social awareness, in real life I think that is called the annoying busy body at a school.
@dramakid2 My experience differs from that of your son’s. Many of the options that I received were positive so I had to choose the one that related closest to me.
The snapshot is definitely not an accurate way of measuring what they are looking for. The questions can be easily manipulated, and like many above have said, some of the questions are a little ridiculous.
However, if the results are good, I would submit them since they would be a little bonus to your application. Not all of the schools are available to submit the CSS, so I just looked up all of the schools I was applying to and submitted to any I could find.
@dogsmama1997 When did you take the test? Thanks!
@ghl She took it Sunday night, got the results Monday afternoon. So while the site said 2 weeks it was 24 hours.